“You expose it. The only way to do it is that you’ve got to expose it. I mean no one understands procurement, no one even knows what the hell you’re talking about, but education is needed and you have to expose the “cartels.” I know that’s strong, but those are the types of words you’ve got to use in order to make people wake up, because otherwise people are never going to understand this stuff. It’s so complicated. It’s so dull, and it’s so important. I have a lot of friends who are part of the problem, and they’re friends because they do some good work, but they’re also part of a system that’s frankly pretty corrupted by money, lobbying and by standard operating procedures. And we’re all complicit.

I am … well, I’m part of the problem, and so all of us have to own up to it. It’s not an indictment of individuals, it’s an indictment of the system at large.”

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We are embarrassingly weak when it comes to transparency. In fact, we are one of the least transparent states in this country. It’s inexcusable. It’s unconscionable, and we are wholly inadequate in terms of our legislative thrust and mandates, and it’s just inexcusable. So the answer is an unequivocal yes. We’ve got a lot of work to do as it relates to transparency.

“The relative ease of getting measures on the ballot enables politicians who have—surprise!—political motivations for going to the voters. The best local example of this was when Supervisor Gavin Newsom introduced the Care Not Cash measure in 2002 and won the mayor’s race a year later. “Gavin wasn’t as prolific a legislator as others,” recalls his campaign manager, Jim Ross. “But every voter knew he was working on stuff, because every election he’d have a measure on the ballot.” If not for Care Not Cash, “Gavin would not have been mayor,” notes one of his political contemporaries. “The big thing is, on ballot measures, there’s no contribution limit. You can be blunt with donors: ‘Hey, if you like me, this helps me elevate myself!’”

You can read more (including how fellow corporate conservative Supervisor Scott Wiener manipulates the process) here.

You can read about the egregious Care Not Cash (called by many “Con Not Cash”) in a Poor Magazine op ed penned by a homeless man here.

“San Diego, billionaire Jacobs’s initial 2012 drive for his Balboa Park bulldozing plan was marked by a $12,000 contribution to the reelection bid of Democratic lieutenant governor Gavin Newsom, less than a month after Newsom sent a letter to California state preservation officer Wayne Donaldson, in which Newsom demanded that Donaldson “withdraw your comments” critical of the project.”